the day after the deadline: can the union survive brexit and other deep questions

not sure which side's indignation when they realise they've been played will be most delicious

I think the fuss about the first stage was the right massively overreacting to the transition rules but the final destination has always been as Barnier sets out.

The government must know by now that they have no real power in this negotiation and they will have to swallow whatever concessions they are made to. Their entire continued political existences, both individually and as a government, are based on pretending otherwise.

The EU must also be calculating that, as infuriating and incompetent as May and Davis are, they are at least known quantities and preferable to sitting around the table with Boris Johnson and/or whichever headbanger they come up with next. So they have a vested interest in allowing them to continue playing to the gallery as long as they don't overreach themselves.

OTM. These negotiations have been totally one-sided, everything the EU have asked for they've got.

The most disappointing thing for me is the way May's extremophile government are managing to survive all these fucking disgraceful daily levels of incompetence and humiliation without dying. To misquote Richard Pryor - they have survived the ultimate test, and the ultimate test is can you survive death. They look increasingly like surviving death for another few years yet.

The most disappointing thing for me is the way May's extremophile government are managing to survive all these fucking disgraceful daily levels of incompetence and humiliation without dying

you can't shame a cockroach iirc

If these fuckers are still here in 2022 then we are all doomed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42420829

Thoughts on this in a bit - I don’t think Barnier’s “fuck off with your passporting” had been mentioned here yet?

was amazed by this line:

"Which begs the question - if they are playing hard ball - why are we being so nice in rolling out the red carpet?"

the BBC

http://drinkinggamezone.com/img/games/movie/blazing-saddles.jpg

L-R: EU negotiators, UK government

But cmere it has to pass commons again once finalised and it won't so all of this is just curious surely

I assume the negotiations are following the same pattern behind closed doors as those for cameron’s emergency brake where he implored them for something he could sell at home but basically got very little from the EU. he thought it was enough that he could trumpet it in the papers at home as having ‘stood up to europe’. the difficulty is that, as cameron quickly found out,, the more eurosceptic press will never be placated come what may so the tories are on a hiding to nothing with this hardmanning

was the mail’s headline not something basically like IS THAT IT? for dave’s big renegotiation

May's extremophile government

a+ for this btw

xpost

More or less, 'Call That a Deal, Dave?'

https://www.thepaperboy.com/uk/2016/02/20/front-pages-archive.cfm

FWIW the most dangerous thing now is probably the emergence of a narrative of national humiliation and Farage is already starting to stoke that up. Best case scenario is that he gets the blame from people who would not normally be inclined to do so but I think that's unlikely.

esp not with the BBC being so awful now. if you haven't seen last week's question time then consider yourself lucky.

The right wing love a good "stabbed in the back" narrative. But hopefully that nonsense won't cut it with most people, and they will be more concerned with the increasingly real threat to living standards.

luckily there's no precedent for people swallowing a stabbed in the back narrative en masse

good thread of additional observations from the barnier interview here:

The EU will be uncompromising on transition: UK must accept EU acquis lock, stock and barrel, including any new laws passed when British ministers and MEPs no longer at the table.

— Jennifer Rankin (@JenniferMerode) December 19, 2017

To be doubly sure, checked: this means EU’s four freedoms, including people, and sensitive areas, such as fisheries. MB said transition shd be “short” without extensions.

— Jennifer Rankin (@JenniferMerode) December 19, 2017

goes back to LG's point, what on earth is all this talk about having cake again about? i can't work out whether it's something they genuinely believe, or it's just for the right-wing press and hard brexit faction, and there'll be another six months of posturing before doing what the EU wants. Think I said unthread that I had a conversation with a friend who had spoken to dexeu civil servants earlier in the year and they said they were seriously hampered by the fact that DD and others *believed* this posturing nonsense, but surely that can't have survived phase 1? seriously, these fucking clowns.

MB said during transition the UK will be allowed to re-negotiate the 750 international agreements that fall when UK leaves EU.

Subtext: good luck with that.

— Jennifer Rankin (@JenniferMerode) December 19, 2017

xp
aye, thank god that never happened!

The outcome of the snap election guaranteed this would happen. A lot of press at the time pointed out that an increase in the Tory majority would mean that the influence of the hard Brexiteers would be drowned out and there would be no need to rely on them for tight votes. This was apparent to the EU too, see this Deutsche Bank analysis for example: http://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-sterling-election-idUSKBN17K1KS

Obviously, what happened happened. The Remain faction in the party is bigger but also clearly more biddable as they vote along with the government on every occasion for the most part.

If you go on conservativehome the comment talk is increasingly of “never voting for the Tories again if they don’t deliver” and the mood is increasingly ugly. Nicky Morgan wrote a piece about receiving death threats and the comments were all along the lines of “yeah but you are actually a traitor so”

This isn’t me slagging off the Remain faction either - getting death threats and constant abuse, especially given what happened to Jo Cox, must be horrific. The government won’t even come out and condemn the Telegraph or the Mail for their rhetoric, so they know they’ve got no support from the party.

Agree with the comments about the emerging and dangerous narrative, but at a loss to see what would change it.

what elias canetti said about his time in frankfurt after the war, when Rathenau was assassinated, reminded me of Brexit when I read it:

The first demonstrations I saw made a deep impact on me; they weren't infrequent and they were always against the war. There was a sharp separation between those who sided with the revolution that had ended the war and the other, who resented not the war, but the Versailles Treaty one year later. This was the most important distinction; its effects were already tangible.

a sharp division and two deeply opposed narratives, everything in the balance. one of those moments in history where perception is divided, and its effects are already tangible. and very ripe for a stab in the back narrative, but i'd like to think apart from political and media delusion there isn't really the appetite for ongoing brexit wars. maybe i'm being naive.

xpost

fuckit just read gyac's post, i'm definitely being naive. always an appetite for resentment.

that sky news thing confronting the people who sent death threats to anna soubry was bonkers, like white racist jihadists who've been radicalised by the Daily Mail to a murderous rage they can't explain. like they were the manchurian pensioners.

And neither of them were even from Yorkshire.

lol at ’the manchurian pensioners’ btw

gammonchurian

nanchurian

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DRf6UCWWAAAVSsz.jpg

whether the future looks good or bad, what is certain is it will involve the robots from the video for "all is full of love"

Been waiting for that to show up. I already have my NO JOBS protest sign ready to protest jobs, safely positioned away from wherever the weak economy and anti-innovation is happening.

fucking scab robots

https://i.imgur.com/PElJrQD.jpg

Awesome.

"Thank you marvellous mechanical man now my party members can watch VR porn without anyone suspecting a thing!"

"I'm actually Jeremy Hunt."

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-mBaQmOUHW-Q/VEDspDD-AbI/AAAAAAAALrc/2OnSHQ7a2Cg/w650-h444-no/alan_mak.jpg

POSITIVE CONSERVATIVE VISION looks like a slightly try-hard album cover for a 90s alt-rock album

conservative home
the home of conservatism

how is montie so bad at this

The future looks really white, but at least George Osborne makes a comeback.

Any reason why there are driverless police cars churning up the countryside into dirt tracks?

Those'll be Google Street View cars, making sure you can see every dirt road in the UK in real time.

xp driverless and passengerless

Crime is abolished in the Conservative Future, huzzah!

Kate Hoey is pretty great at trolling

https://i.imgur.com/aHDVx3g.png

https://i.imgur.com/LB28R4I.png

Green has apparently gone.

May asked him to resign and subsequently accepted his resignation, which is stretching the definition a touch.

'Resigned' over not telling the truth that he knew the police found porn on his computer.

it's a disgrace, he hasn't done anything

... sorry, someone's else's porn on his computer.